Landfills may have to test groundwater for pollutants

Under proposed state rules, landfills that take debris from construction and demolition sites would have to regularly test groundwater for a long list of toxic metals and chemicals.

Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch

Under proposed state rules, landfills that take debris from construction and demolition sites would have to regularly test groundwater for a long list of toxic metals and chemicals.

If any of the 77 listed pollutants were detected, companies would have to test groundwater outside landfill boundaries to see if any leaked. If there were leaks, the landfill owner would face Ohio Environmental Protection Agency orders to clean up the pollution.

Heidi Griesmer, an agency spokeswoman, said the regulations meet a 2005 state law that mandates increased groundwater monitoring. The rules also follow a 2009 agency survey that found hazardous pollutants inside 30 landfills.

The pollutants, including arsenic, benzene and vinyl chloride, were found in “leachate” — water that bubbles up inside landfills.

Ohio’s debris landfills were unregulated for decades because the materials dumped in them — concrete, drywall and splintered lumber — were deemed harmless. But that’s changed for the 53 operating landfills, including five in central Ohio.

Problems arose after several landfills started taking millions of tons of debris from waste haulers as far away as New Jersey and New York. One site, Warren Recycling in Trumbull County, became notorious for underground fires and clouds of noxious hydrogen sulfide gas.

That landfill, which was closed in 2004, helped prompt state lawmakers to pass the 2005 water-monitoring law.

The Ohio EPA first proposed regulations in 2006 but withdrew them after industry officials complained that compliance would be too expensive.

The Construction and Demolition Association of Ohio won’t oppose these regulations, said its attorney, Michael Cyphert. He said a key compromise gives companies more time and flexibility to set aside money needed to safely shut down and maintain closed landfills.

The proposed rules would require companies to test water inside the landfill at least once a year. Landfills with water-circulation systems would have to test four times a year.

The regulations don’t include other requirements that the Ohio EPA released in a draft document in January. Those would have forced new and expanding landfills to install plastic liners to help keep pollutants from leaking. Cyphert and Griesmer said those requirements are still being discussed.

Richard Sahli, a Columbus environmental attorney and a longstanding critic of the state’s landfill oversight, said the water requirements are long overdue.

“It’s a shame that it’s taken six years since the adoption of the 2005 reform legislation to have this basic safeguard,” Sahli said.

The proposed regulations will be discussed during a public hearing at10:30 a.m. on Jan. 3 at the Ohio EPA central offices, located at 50 W. Town St. in Downtown. A final set of rules could be enacted sometime in 2012.

shunt@dispatch.com

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